>> i honor each and every one of you for coming out to the library on saturday afternoon to have a discussion on this important topic. who used personal care products?

shampoo, face cream, deodorant, contact solution? the numbers could be staggering. the stories that i tell in the book and stories i talk about today are store reus about all of us. to tell you a little bit about my personal story. i was a 17 magazine makeup reading desperate to read in. with each careful purchase, i was one step closer to that girl i dreamed up. i used lots of them, 20 products a day, makeup, skin creams, an enormous cloud of

aqua net hair spray. this is the back in the days of big hair and shoulder pads and bright makeup. i looked up all these products as a teen, 20 products a day, i was surprised to discover, i had been with exposing myself to 200 products a day before i got on the school bus. what is in this stuff that we put on our bodies, put in our hair on a daily basis. that is what we have been working on and looking at for about the passed 5 years. these are the groups involved in the campaign for safe products. most poplar brands of all kinds of products, deodor rants,

makeups, even baby shampoos contain chemicals that are toxic that get into our system. most of these chemicals, um, come from oil by-products, petroleum. this is true of the high end brands like cliniq ue. we know they are toxic, animal studies show they lead to certain health effects. it is okay because there is just a little bit of toxic chemical and you can't prove it causes harm. so of course, as we pointed out, none of us used this product today. here is a run down of my beauty

routine, some of the things i was supposed to, 40 hormone chemicals, 17 carcinogens, 17 penetration chemicals. they draw others more deeply into the property. 16 toxins, less than 50 percent of my chemicals has been assessed by any publically accountable institutions. there are no government requirements for us to understand these chemicals. we have a lot of information about some of them. most of them have never been -- the combined mixtures of a developing teenager saying day after day year after year. there is a lot we don't know. what do know there is a

tremendous amount of scientific evidence that showing low doses of chemical exposures can interfere with hormones, change the way our genomes for diseases that come down the long. most important time of development in the womb, teenagers developing. we also know that disease chronic disease is meaning chemicals are on the rise, breast cancers. who knows a young cancer or family member that has breast cancer, infertilities, testicular cancer. there is a lot of evidence showing environmental pollutants are part of the reason. so we see that there is a lot of cause for concerns and the

trends um, cause us to look at these chemicals and say what is going on here. we know from the science that chemicals are ending up where they are not supposed to be and that is inside of our bodies. scientists can measure the chemicals getting into us, bio measuring. this is from the first chapter, indecent exposure, the intimate details. charlotte was surprised by the test results. mother of 2 among the first people to be tested for a wide range of industrial chemicals. test revealed that her body contained mercury lead

cosmetics. i felt violated charlotte reported. she was upset about the pesticide. i never used them in my house, never on my lawn. i bought organic whenever i could. her body contained several variations of organic chlorines designed to attack nervous systems of insects. i never bought it. isn't that trespassing. i tell this in my story of mary broon. mary never felt called to be an environmentalist she was nursing her 6 month daughter olivia and a story had been

done by texas tech where they looked at breast milk samples, all were contaminated with rocket fuel. i was stunned, i thought breast milk was as pure as it came for food source. i was up all night thinking about it. i tell the story about michelle from california whose family was the first family to be monitored in the oakland tribune. it stunned even scientists. the tests found many of the same chemicals they found in charlotte's 5-year-old mic ala, she had recently spent a lot of time in nail salons. the biggest surprise of what

they found in 2-year-old rowland, chemicals found in nearly anyone else in the world 6 times higher than in parents, twice the levels that researchers see in land animals. this is a serious warning said a scientist researchers on flame retar tkapbts. young children are exposed because they put their hands in their mouth and bodies don't eliminate chemicals as readily. to me i think very historically crystallizes what we are learning. that was a story in 2006 by the environmental working group where they analyzed the

umbilical cord blood of newborn babies and found an average of 200 chemicals found to be toxic in every single baby, man made synthetic chemicals. when we see this picture that babies are being born into the world polluted with industrial chemicals it is time to say how can we do things differently? how can we do things differently? that is the question that essentially we took to the world's largest beauty companies starting in 2003 letters, phone calls. who thinks the companies were wanting to have this conversation? unfortunately they weren't. we encountered a lot of evasion, excuses. first they ignored us. increasingly they are having to

have this conversation because people are become withing more concerned and the companies are having to face up to it. i think, you know, when see this information, too, we realize, all of us are contaminated, we understand the choices we make intimately affect our biology, the same poisons running through the rivers are running through our veins, especially the billion dollar corporations that are selling dreams of health and beauty around the world. they have a have a responsibility. does anybody think baby shampoo eds to contain carcinogens? many companys are making these products without the chemicals.

when we look at testing of baby products, most of the brands and this is poplar bubble aths coaia k iws ra nd d ain he ee indury, they said we can't gelead out f lipstick. but it s notn 39 ernto the prod including this $1.99 wet and $24 ipstwh we and and

for e higend nd marketing. everybody likes to ask about cliniq u e if you go into a macies, you'll see the lab white coats and scientifically presented. it is the same set of chemicals packaged with a different marketing program. disturbing some of the women of color are among the most toxic. women are bombarded with light skinned looking models. every product claims to have a

whitening benefit. here is an example of one of the ads that you'll see in china, procter and gamble, high end line sk 2, hugely poplar, this product was the cause of near riots in china in 2006 after the government ep it contained, band heavy metal. hundreds of women demanding refunds lined up down the block. here is an exampleof them busting down the headquarters women o not want toxic bad meta. in tir $100 kin cream. unfortunately, the government

and procter and gamble was eaked utabout this. then it was announceable, ju don't worry. of toxic metals, they put the products back n the shelf and back on the market. china s the no. 1 gwth market or procter and gamble. have quotes where she says china is no. 2 mark and going for no1 and do it by marketing our products to millions of villages across china. that is the mentality of the company, all about growth and convincing us that we need more products. these are also in the most toxic categories and increasingly marketed to younger and younger girls. this is an example of a 5 or 7 year old on the cover of a skin, hair relaxer.

these are ratings, that is the most toxic hair relaxers and no. 1 is a kid's product. then for hair dye, younger and younger girls are getting hair dye. "new york times", girls 10 and 11 are getting their hair dyed into the salon. it used to be 15 or 16. the industry was excited. this represent as growth market for the industries. it also represents age and continued chemical exposures to many of these toxins for young girls and more exposures to the environment as hair dyes get into the waterway and food even if we don't get our hair dyed.

our skin should be lighter and darkers, smoother, lips plumper, these companies have so much power over our minds, public space and sense of self as they continue to expose us to chemicals even though safer alternatives are available. we have the power. we have the power to decide which products we put on our body and which companies we support with our money. that is actually a real power that can feel very very good when you start to take advantage of it. ahrolt a lot of this

information is scary and real. i tell people, i do get to the good news around chapter 10. there is a lot of good news to share. i have heard so many amazing stories along the way. 30 cities in 13 states. 3,000 people come out to these talks. there is just an amazing energy. and so many just wonderful store reus about people engaging in this work, people who have been to skin deep and start their own company or change their major. people making radical decisions about their own personal life styles. i like to tell this story of my

kus cousin janet, 45, vice president at wells fargo. she was queen makeup diva. i was baby diva. she admitted to me she was spending $800 a month on beauty products. it was hair dye and facials and the most expensive products, ever. she read the book and started to feel overwhelmed and discovered this superexpensive evening cream had hydroevo. it makes your skin tingle, so you think something is happening. she went back to the makeup counters and have polite conversations, hey, i think you

can do better. until you do i'm going to buy something else. she decided to stop coloring her hair after many, many years and loves the way she looks and feels better than she has in a long time. when i heard about the stuff, i was mad about the chemicals, when i start to think about it, i realized, i was exhausted with trying to keep up with looking 10 years younger than i am and not working any way. she felt liberated. that emotional journey. this sense of freedom and personal empowerment. that is the place i want us to get to. i am going to close with a couple of stories about the wonderful amazing things i was

seen along the way that i think are the signs that we are really making huge changes and doing it together. every single person that took time out of their saturday is part of that movement and together we can do anything and we are changing the beauty industry. the power of information, this is skin deep. an amazing resource. you should check it out. almost 30,000 products matched up with 50 government data bases and see how they score 0 to 10 on the toxicity month. if you look up shampoos, this is the most toxic and who is at the top of the list, loreal

kids' shampoo. there are many, many companies on this list that are making safer shampoos. this the first that comes up in skin deep. more companies coming out with great new products and all sorts of thing that is you didn't get in the natural space that is available. the good news is innovation, paul, the father of new chemistry. he is way too young to be the father of green chemistry. he is in his mid 40's and now teaching at yale. just got married to the woman

that does the green design at yale. both programs are about a year old. the universities are finally trying to get this. amy on the right is the first chemist -- last year more women graduated than men. we have the technologies to figure this out. we need to get the billion dollar beauty companies supporting this research. of course the power of act vision, opi nail products. they are the largest seller of largest products worldwide, 70

countries. they are using -- why don't you take it out of your u.s. products. they weren't too keen on that. we think the europeans are crazy. opi has fun names like i am not really a waitress red. we decided to do a spoof and we came up with our own names, like i can't believe it is a carcinogen. we dressed up with sashes that said mistreatment. this all happened in may, by august the company announced

they were taking out formaldehyde and now advertising all of their products are free of those chemicals. >> [applause]. >> that was a huge victory and it show that is we can change the industry, they are responsive and they can change on a dime relatively quickly. we have products and they work wonderfully and the prices didn't go. there is an initial resistance, we see it is possible to change this industry and happening very quickly. so i want to commend everybody that has worked on that and everybody who has chosen to think about the research and what they are using. one last reading from the book, this theme and what is possible to do together.

this is the- chapter of my book, extreme make over, we need to give the beauty industry, u.s. government and economy a make over. this is a story about 2 of my favorite she ras. the women went to a share holding meeting and carrying 5,000 brooms. in india a broom is a woman's power. by delivering brooms, we are telling them to clean up their mess. chemical melt down spent 20 tons of gas into their city. they are leading the fight to send justice to their people

and the worst fate. mothers carry poisons in their breasts. she accepted the 2004 environmental prize. we are not expendable. we are not flowers offered at the profit and power. we are dancing flames commitmented to darkness and the magic and mystery of life. women have long been slain at the environmental health and justice, from rachel to louis and the family of love canal. to the women of india and around the world fighting to clean up dangerously contaminated community. today more women have more power than ever before,

especially more economic power and political power, women can shift the balance of power and change the face of the future. we are the once we have been waiting for as the poet june jordan. if we can bring ourselves to great clarity as to cause and effect. the environment is us, it is our wombs, our breast milk and families. our children to thrive in our bodies, unpolluted. the beauty industry and on to the next clean up project, the plastic industry, oil and war

industries, too until there are no more toxic chemicals in babies, no more rocket fuel in breast milk or communities burdened by pollution. that is the work before us and that is what we are here to do and thank you so much for joining me for beauty and make over.